12-13-2019, 01:51 AM | #31 | |
Groupie
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There are times and locations where being caught with "unapproved" reading material can have disastrous consequences. Just a few months ago in Portland Oregon a young man was beaten bloody because he was carrying an American flag during a public demonstration. It isn't hard to imagine what would happen to someone seen in a nearby coffee shop reading the "wrong" book, or was included on a list circulated by those who oppose some particular viewpoint. I interpreted the OP's post to be about covert surveillance collecting and collating information on people's reading habits and interests. Of course Amazon knows about the books they sold their customers, but they (and Adobe) don't need to know about the books their customers obtained from other sources. It is now illegal in the US for rental companies to disclose the titles of videos rented/borrowed by a customer but I don't believe the same protection applies to ebooks. It isn't about hiding from Amazon, Kobo or Bank of America - it is about being free to read anything which interests an individual without having to look over one's shoulder while doing so. |
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12-13-2019, 05:55 AM | #32 | |
C L J
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12-13-2019, 07:33 AM | #33 | |
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12-13-2019, 03:54 PM | #34 | |
01000100 01001010
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I had an acquaintance who has no online presence, but uses the internet all day every day. He has a junk email account set up with a pseudonym. When he shops online, he goes with a browser that has a blocker extension installed and he only uses a pre paid visa gift card. Ships to General Delivery. Some people call him paranoid, but no corporations know anything about him based on his internet use. He does use credit cards when he is shopping offline. |
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12-26-2019, 03:33 PM | #35 |
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12-28-2019, 04:00 PM | #36 |
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It seems the OP hasn't been back since their first post. At least they haven't participated in the discussion they themselves started.
It's really irritating, those fly-by-night posters who want help or advice and then vanish without any response, not even so much as thank-you. And there are many of those. I've never understood that kind of attitude. |
12-28-2019, 08:55 PM | #37 | |
C L J
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12-28-2019, 09:43 PM | #38 |
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The OP was last on MR on Dec 14. But obviously didn't want to reply here.
I just wish it was possible to know if the OP is going to waste our time or not before trying to help. |
12-29-2019, 03:25 AM | #39 | |
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Kindle makes online-reading really convenient and auto-syncs your Amazon e-library over the cloud in the process (and tracks you at the same time). For offline/sideloaded reading, a major inconvenience on Kindle is that it does not support epub, which is the most common e-book format, so you have to use Calibre on the computer to convert those books. Most people on this forum consider Calibre a wonderful thing, but I consider it a nuisance, an unnecessary middle-man and a waste of space on the computer. All I want is to download a file in the webbrowser and drag-and-drop it to the e-reader over a cable connection. The e-reader itself never has a compelling reason to connect to the internet, IMHO. I have never bought an e-book from the Amazon webstore. I hear they use a Kindle-specific format there. The purchase used to be downloadable, maybe it still is, but two important facts make me avoid Amazon - that the download is not an explicit promise up front and the format is something that only works in the Kindle app/device. Luckily Amazon is not ruling the entirety of the e-book world yet. The overwhelming majority of my reading material has been found free by googling, not by purchasing. Much of it is in pdf format, the rest in epub, djvu, and doc. Therefore I need an ereader that can handle these different formats. Pocketbook and Android e-readers can handle pretty much all the formats out of the box. It is important to consider the possibility of installing the reading app that you like most. This is very much needed particularly for pdf. Again, Pocketbook and Android e-readers do a decent job displaying pdf out of the box with their default reading apps. Zooming, cropping, arbitrary column-setting, etc. are absolute necessities with pdf. There is a version of Koreader, a very good free app for e-reading in a bunch of formats, available for Pocketbooks (easiest to install), for Kobo (where installation and patching procedures are more difficult and error-prone), and for jailbroken Kindle. A Kindle is not worth buying, unless it can be jailbroken or unless everything you read comes from Amazon bookstore or unless you passionately love post-processing stuff with Calibre. |
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12-30-2019, 01:36 PM | #40 |
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12-30-2019, 01:40 PM | #41 | |
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I love my car. But having to constantly purchase fuel is a nuisance. Waste of money IMHO. |
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12-30-2019, 02:04 PM | #42 | |
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Although even without Calibre, getting ebooks in MOBI or AZW3 has never been a problem for me. Most DRM-free sites I've downloaded from (e.g. Gutenberg) provide downloads in multiple formats. As for PDF, I wouldn't want to read it on e-ink smaller than ~10" class. I just stick to 10" class or bigger tablets for those (GoodReader on iPad preferred). |
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12-30-2019, 02:19 PM | #43 |
C L J
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The majority of mobama's post seems to be an argument in favour of reading dead tree books instead of ebooks; it seems that each point could equally apply to any ereader type.
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12-30-2019, 02:41 PM | #44 | |||||||
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As for being tracked, what is it that's being tracked and what is it you don't want tracked? Quote:
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12-30-2019, 02:43 PM | #45 |
Resident Curmudgeon
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Part of his post says that he uses Google to find and download eBooks for his Reader. That to me raises red flags that he's pirating eBooks.
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